During my recent trip to China I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Shanghai. Before I went to China, I promised Mikael Colville-Andersen that I would snap some photos of “Cycle Chic” action while biking around Shanghai.

Mikael popularized the term “Cycle Chic” in his blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic which he started 3 years ago. The Cycle Chic movement has now spread across the globe – but unfortunately nobody has started a “Shanghai Cycle Chic” blog at the time of this writing (The Urban Country is blocked within China, so the people of Shanghai won’t be able to view this post)

Cycle Chic means different things for different people. To me, it’s riding your bike in your regular clothes – be it your work clothes, your clubbing clothes, or your Sunday attire – whatever it is that you happen to be wearing.

It’s about riding with style and without the requisite of any pretentious clothing or gear.

As evidenced in my recent article Utility Cycling in China, the bicycle is a tool in China that serves a useful purpose. It gets people from A to B fast. It’s convenient to park, it’s inexpensive and it’s healthy.

The following photos illustrate how regular people in their regular attire use bicycles for transportation in Shanghai:

Hi Jim,Your website looks absolutely awesome! I connected easily with all your articles and could see that we speak the same language lol 🙂I’m a commuter cyclist from Vancouver, and it’s really cool to see a Canadian website dedicated to cycling, sustainable growth and transportation.I think with Bike To Work Week coming up, I can see more and more people riding in everyday fashion.I’m originally from Wuhan, China, and moved 9 years ago. Looking at your photos, I’m slowly remembering the streets and caught myself surprised about the wide use of bicycles/tricycles/etc back in China. In recent years, most of the blogs I’ve read are focusing on European streets and how great they are for cycling, but it’s really Asian too. I’m hoping China will reverse the trend of prohibiting bicycles on main trendy streets starting in the late 90s and instead advertise cycling as a chic way of moving. (I’m sure the government is pro at propaganda, lol.)

@Eric, thanks for coming by. I’m glad I could stir up some memories of China for you. It’s a really interesting country that is changing extremely fast.

I think the reason China isn’t advertised as a bike haven is because historically the Chinese used bikes out of necessity, whereas in some European countries, they choose bikes even though they could afford automobiles.

@Cranky, thanks for dropping in – I’ve been keeping an eye on you too 🙂

@Mike, virtually all of the bikes I saw in China were the sit-up style bikes and some mountain bikes. Out of the thousands and thousands of bicycles I saw, I only saw about 5 “racing” cyclists in lycra and helmets. Almost nobody wears helmets – with the notable exception of the Pizza Hut and KFC delivery men (check those photos out in my article “Utility Cycling in China” and Mikael’s subsequent comment.

I haven’t found any accident statistics in China – I doubt they are publicized in the same way they are in western countries. Accidents do happen there for sure, but it would be interesting to compare to North American cities indeed.